


Some things you will remember (some things stay sweet forever)

by belmanoir



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: First Time, Kevin/Rami, M/M, Not Kayfabe Compliant, RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-08 10:06:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7753402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmanoir/pseuds/belmanoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times Kevin wrote “PLEASE BUY MY ¡SHIRTS!” on Rami’s back, and one time he wrote something else. (Not necessarily in that order.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some things you will remember (some things stay sweet forever)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by watching Kevin and Rami's first match at IWS. Thank you to mithen for pointing out to me that Kevin was probably the one to write on Rami's back! (You can see what I'm talking about [here, in her delightful GIF set](http://mithen-gifs-wrestling.tumblr.com/post/138106350138/2004-an-iws-match-between-pierre-carl-ouellet).)
> 
> Title is from the Mountain Goats' "Animal Mask."

1.

_IWS. October 18, 2003, just before Kevin Steen and El Generico get in the ring together for the first time._

Rami hands him something. A little jar. “Can you write ‘Please buy my shirts’ on my back? Like, with this body paint and your finger. All capital letters, and an upside-down exclamation point before ‘shirts’ and a right-side-up one after, like in Spanish, you know?”

“Yeah, sure.” Kevin is impressed. That’s hustle.

Rami turns around. Suddenly Kevin is feeling a little...sweaty. Shit, not this. It’s not even a great back! Kevin sees way better ones all the time. Rami is scrawny as fuck. If he pressed any harder with his finger, he could probably feel every one of Rami’s ribs.

He still feels like he’s humming, or buzzing, or something, a low-grade whir inside like a fucking refrigerator. He goes slowly and carefully, not wanting to mess this up or do something weird by mistake. “Shit.”

“What?”

“I wrote the exclamation point right-side up.”

Rami tenses, then sighs. “It’s okay,” he says unconvincingly. “There’s no time to fix it. It’ll be fine.”

 

2.

Kevin’s done this a few times now for big matches. He goes quickly, he knows how big to write ‘shirts’ to fit the whole word, and he gets the upside-down exclamation point right. He tries not to think about anything else. The wrestling’s what matters.

 

3.

Kevin is only on ‘MY.’ He’s pretty sure he’s been writing on Rami’s back for way too long. Maybe they’re going to be late for their match, but Kevin doesn’t care. 

Rami doesn’t tell him to hurry, but since Rami is late for everything, maybe he doesn’t care in a more general, less urgent sort of way.

Why is this so special? He touches Rami all the time now. Rami’s even started leaning his head on Kevin’s shoulder and hugging him and shit. But Kevin can’t let that mean anything, and he sure can’t think about this in the ring—so maybe that’s it. This is the only time he can touch Rami slowly and deliberately and think about how much he likes it.

 

4.

Kevin can’t keep it in a box anymore and take it out just during this one time. It’s spilling over into everything and he’s sick of it.

He’s afraid that if he says something, though, Rami will just freak out and that will be it, game over, making out is off the table forever. He wants Rami to have a minute to think it over before he has to talk to Kevin about it. 

He also would really rather not see the look on Rami’s face if it’s _ew_. He has a plan.

He’s only about five seconds into his plan when Rami jerks away. “What are you doing?”

Stupid plan, huh? Somehow it didn’t occur to him that Rami would be able to tell he wasn’t just writing ‘PLEASE BUY MY ¡SHIRTS!’ like always. He’d imagined he’d have at least until after the match. Maybe he’d have hours. Maybe he’d even have a couple days while Rami tracked down a copy of the tape. “Nothing,” he says, heart pounding. “Just trying something a little different.”

Rami eyes him suspiciously, but he turns around again and presents his naked back. Kevin doesn’t want to lose this feeling: being trusted. Being allowed. But it’s too late to turn back now, even though with every letter he carefully paints he can feel Rami concentrating, trying to figure out what he’s writing. 

He writes ‘I LOVE YOU!’ and draws a smiley face underneath. 

He thought it over for days, and that seemed like the best option: it would get the point across (it might be an exaggeration, honestly, but ‘I like you’ felt...wishy-washy) and it seemed like something Generico might want to tell the crowd. And it wouldn’t be sexual harassment to write it on Rami’s back, unlike ‘Will you go on a date with me?’, which would obviously end in Rami being trampled to death.

Kevin can’t figure out his expression, but he can feel Rami watching him all the way to the ring, and then—Rami is off his game. Not too bad, but he fucks up his timing on a dive and knees Kevin right in the face. They play it off, but in the back of his mind, the part that isn’t wrestling right now, Kevin starts to get nervous.

The paint is gone by the end of the match, only a few faint black smears left. Suddenly Kevin is _really_ nervous. What if this doesn’t work at all? What if Rami never finds out and Kevin has to, like...what? Just ask him out? That’s the worst thing he’s ever thought of.

He’s feeling a little woozy by the time they get to their merch tables. He sits down gratefully, feeling his jaw and trying to decide how long it will take to stop hurting. 

Rami leans over and says in a low, intent voice, “I’m not apologizing. What did you write on my back?”

“Uh.” Kevin stalls. “What do you think I wrote?”

A girl comes up to buy a T-shirt. As she turns away with her purchase, Kevin takes a deep breath, ready for the moment of truth—she turns back. Kevin honestly kind of wants to rip her face off, but then she grins and says “We love you too!”, holding up a finger in Generico’s signature gesture.

Saved. He lets his breath out in a whoosh. 

There’s silence. Enough of it that Kevin starts to itch.

“That's what I thought,” Rami says in a flat voice. “So—is that a rib?”

“No! What? _No_. Why would you think that?” More silence. Rami obviously thinks Kevin is somehow trying to make him look stupid. He was ready for Rami to be angry or grossed out, but it didn’t occur to him that Rami might just not get it.

“So...you mean...you?” Rami asks finally. “Like, you mean it?”

This is what Kevin wanted. This moment of truth. Now that it’s here he wants to run away. If Rami doesn’t want to get back in the ring with him—

It’s too late, he already said, “Yeah.” To soften it, he adds, “I guess. Yeah.”

“Like...romantically.”

Kevin might throw up. “Yeah. I guess.”

Rami’s shoulders relax about halfway. “Me too, then, I guess.” He relaxes the rest of the way and starts to smile, his really nice happy smile that makes Kevin feel weightless. “But like, next time if you could just talk to me about it instead of putting my personal business out there for the whole world to see—”

People start trickling over to the merch tables. Kevin is vibrating but also he needs that T-shirt money, so.

*

Kevin picks up his duffel bag. So does Rami. The conversation feels over, far away. Kevin doesn’t know how to bring it up again. 

He drives Rami home, two hours of dead silence. Unheard of. Kevin is losing his mind. He pulls up in front of Rami’s house.

Rami doesn’t open the car door. Is Kevin supposed to do something? Like, go around and open Rami’s door for him now that they’re...what, though? What are they? If he doesn’t open his fucking mouth and say something, are they just going to go back to how things were yesterday?

“You want to come in?” Rami says.

“Sure.” Kevin follows him up to his room. Rami shuts the door and stands there awkwardly. Then he kind of...leans forward hopefully. His hands come up to about chest-level and hover.

Kevin can’t help laughing. “You’ve touched my face before, dude.”

Rami throws his hands in the air and launches himself at Kevin like Generico would, and then their mouths are pressed together. It’s a little weird and Kevin’s jaw hurts. His palms are sweating and his heart is racing. 

He puts his hands carefully on Rami’s back. It feels wrong. Tugging up Rami’s shirt, he presses his palms onto Rami’s bare skin, hard enough to feel his ribs. Better. And—nice side effect—it pushes Rami’s chest into his. In a second, maybe, Rami will relax and their crotches will touch. Maybe.

For now, they’re kissing. Kevin’s pretty fucking happy with that.

 

5.

Kevin scrawls the final exclamation point and drops a quick kiss on Rami’s shoulder. There’s no need to drag it out anymore: he can touch Rami as much as he wants later. “C’mon, let’s knock ’em dead.”

Generico kisses Kevin’s shoulder in answer and cheers silently.


End file.
